Author's notes:
This story is 'M' rated, although it does not have any sexual implications or violence in it. It has dark themes and despite the fact that in my personal opinion it isn't even dark enough for the rating, it really depends on the taste of the person reading it. I don't want to hear complaints about ruining someone's basic idea of the Labyrinth because of it.
There are a lot of pronouns used in this story. It is deliberate.
The thought process is jumpy, that's because the human-mind is not consistent or sequential.
You might also find other grammatical incorrectness, deliberate or the opposite. I am not interested in complaints about it, though.
You've been warned, read at your own discretion.
Goblins in the Details
She didn't know exactly why it hadn't come to her much sooner. Why had she taken everything as fact and hadn't pondered over it sooner. Perhaps her childish mind had blocked all reason. But when the detail caught her mind, it gnawed her brain like owl claws. How couldn't she have seen it sooner?
The time was bleak, before the dawn. When no sun shone, no moon or stars to lit her path and seem less evanescent, yet so stuck in an eternity. Thick grey clouds over-window, making it dark, but not hiding anything from her seeing gaze. She could hear, much louder than was possible, the shaking leaves on trees in heavy autumn winds, the lost ones dragging, screeching on the pavement in the yard.
Oh, why she hadn't seen it sooner? Insanity was near or possibly the sanity was never there to even begin with. Realization shattering all signs of fantasy, setting in like a bad case of termites in a wooden house. She shivered, backing away as if trying to abandon all her newest findings. Reality was never fair and a cruel mistress was her fate. Devils in the details they say, a cold mocking voice told her from inside her mind, one unfamiliar and clearly not her own. Eyes wide, she felt like crying, oh she had caught the devil alright.
Obvious things had never slipped her grasp like this before. So how could it have been that she hadn't understood it before? She should have! It was so easy...
She found herself like Alice, creating fantasy, while basing it on warped reality. Closing her eyes, tears falling from beneath her thick, long lashes, she backed away some more. A detail that destroyed a world... So small, irrelevant it seemed, yet mind blowing if looked from the right angle.
She felt a storm brewing upon the calm colorless sky. And the logical part of her mind, the figment of sanity condemned her for making such a harsh decision – the weather was far too calm for storms to happen.
Oh yes, she was like Alice... Creating twisted worlds from her own life... An angry aunt into the red-queen, two giggling sibling cousins into constantly bickering twins, a clever, guiding father with a pipe between his lips to a wise-man caterpillar smoking a hookah... No different... But she was no child to have imaginary-friends or dream so wildly! And when she had to escape, not from telling a poem about cherries, but from the presence of her hated mundane chore of watching over her baby brother – she had jumped down the rabbit-hole, no thought included. Oh her mind was brilliant in all its chaos! Giving her life reason, making her value and love her brother more... A twisted, deformed voice from her head had laughed agreeably at that thought, tears flowing harder – it wasn't her voice. It was like someone whispering into her ear but from inside her skull. It wasn't possible!
Her hands wound themselves into her hair. Had someone drilled holes in her head, for her to hear such things? Another mad thought, her hands pulled harder. No, she wouldn't think like that! She refused to do it! She tried to stomp her foot in defiance but it was nailed down to the carpet. She had to breathe, at least the floor was real. She had to take some solace in that, cling to something for stability. Her voice was lost, no sobbing sounds emitting. Her legs were walking backwards, on their own accord it seemed. They hit the back of her quaint bed and tried to back-away some more. Cornered though she was.
The screeching of leaves on asphalt growing louder by the minute. She fell back on the bed and curled into a ball. It's all a coincidence, the many voices in her head tried to usher her into sweet, ignorant oblivion. She had never believed in coincidences, there were no such things. She couldn't stop her helpless shivering. The feeling of dread encasing her in its iron grasp. She felt like throwing-up, giving away all the contents of her empty stomach, to get the bile out of her, to get the acid out.
Oh why had it to be her? She wanted, so badly, to wind her hands around Lancelot – her faithful teddy-bear, the one entrusted to her baby-brother. Her whole body jerked at the mention of the toy's name... How couldn't she have seen it sooner? She named it after a character from the old legends of King Arthur and his knights. She loved the legends about them so much! She even named her dog after the wizard from the legend – Merlin. She cried soundlessly atop her bed, the voices shrieking and talking louder and louder in her head. She thought again about the companion of a brave, yet harmless fox... Ambrosius – the dog's name was. It was identical to her own pet and it wasn't just the breed... The name... The name of the wizard she so passionately admired... Merlin Ambrosius...
Yes, she was just like Alice... She didn't even want to know on what she based everyone else! And yet she couldn't stop... The voices tried to convince her to cease it, talking, screaming all at once, from different corners of her mind. She wouldn't listen, she couldn't! This was inevitable anyway.
And him, she wouldn't utter his name, not even in her mind. She wouldn't indulge her insanity and call upon him. The voices all grew silent as if encouraging her to do it. The anticipation in their stillness unnerved her. But she wouldn't relent! She could feel the storm now, hear lightning crackling and the pitter-patter of rain on her window. She saw the flashes through her closed eyelids, yet she knew it wasn't there. The familiar storm was only in her mind. She opened her heavy eyes quickly only to be greeted by the bleak light from her closed-up windows. She couldn't see the storm and yet she could. The images swam and she shut her eyes again...
Him... She created his visage from the statuette atop her vanity, she loved it oh so much... The storm grew louder and yet she could hear the real weather outside too. An insistent knocking of a beak into the glass of the window was present too, she could hear it from inside her head... Oh why she hadn't seen it all sooner? She curled into a tighter ball, putting her arms around herself. Everything was far too perfect, happening exactly how she wanted... And that in itself was unreal enough, how couldn't she have seen it in an instant? The whole maze-based world had begun collapsing with each thought...
A Goblin King that stole children was far too kind, too harmless to be real. A Labyrinth, she passed, without any real hardships or dangers... Not twisted and horrible like in reality it should have been... Just, just friendly monsters and harmless goblins? Masquerade balls and the biggest punishment a smelly bog, no execution, no tortures, nothing? Just a reeking swamp? And... and poisoned peaches? Like Snow White talking bite of a poisoned apple and falling into an eternal dream... She loved the story but she really didn't fancy apples... She sobbed without a sound. The voices... The storm and the beating into her window only grew louder once more. Loud from inside her skull but only phantoms of real sound. Her fear grew stronger, petrified she was. She tried to calm her breathing and her loud-beating heart...
The house was full, yet she couldn't feel anyone inside. She nodded to herself, for now she would just wait for everything to end. For her parents to come and wake her from her bed, to hear her brother's early morning wails. Yet there was no presence of them, as if they were all ferried away... But they were here! They had to be! Alas she felt it again, as if she knew for fact – they weren't there. And yet the spark of sanity and clarity told her it wasn't true, all three were in their beds, slumbering peacefully...
Her most favorite book and her most precious treasure... The Labyrinth... Everything was based upon it. Lines which she spent hours trying to learn and memorize... She wanted so badly to be the heroine inside the book! To be the one the Goblin King fell madly in love with... With whom he fell in love with... No, no, no! Not him, the character! Just the character... She cried and dug her fingernails into her palms. Her fairytale gone wrong...
She could see fluorescent or halogen lamps swaying, it really didn't matter which. They were buzzing.
White rabbits, straightjackets...
The no-longer white walls burned her eyes, pushing them back into the eye sockets. Tight putrid-white bindings around her... Straightjacket...
How... How could have they found out?! She hadn't told a soul...
She was still lying on her bed, warm fluffy quilt beneath her... White linen was biting her bare legs, her breathing was constricted... But she was wearing jeans...
How could have they found out?! They couldn't have! She didn't utter a word about it... Oh god!
She heard Goblin feet scurrying about her room. Yet this time no mocking laughter and sniggering to be heard, just feet...
This-
She felt a needle submerge her skin, she felt herself trashing, while lying still. Voices in her head now talking outside too... White rabbit, straightjacket...
-isn't real!
She cried and shivered or was her form rocking in a demented way against a blinding-white wall?
She could feel hands like from a memory – not there yet present, stroking her hair in a loving, adoring way. His hands! His ghost-hands stroking her hair in a soothing manner, she could feel them now, so real... Inside her head and in the outside too... She refused to open her eyes, to indulge her madness. She could feel and smell the leather... Leather gloves sliding through her hair... And... And bare ones, with long nails... claws... talons... It was impossible! Both gloved and not at the same time. This... This wasn't real...
Everything: the sounds, visions and smells all at once... It was too much! Make it stop!
She could see, while having her eyes closed shut. The voices grew louder, the scurrying of feet more frantic and malicious, the storm and leaves upon the pavement, buzzing halogen or fluorescent lights and flashing bolts of lightning... Everything that seemed to be inside her head was simultaneously bleeding into reality... His hands petting her head, soothing her...
I've gone mad... Oh god...
He whispered into her ear, from inside her head and not. The wording not something he would ever utter. Strange words as if taken from another book...
"Girl, you've gone bonkers..."
"Sarah..." his voice dragged her name through mud and silk. Taunting. Beckoning.
The lights were ringing in her ears, soiled linen beneath her. No... No, not linen... And she wasn't bound...
Jareth!
This was all too much!
...I've gone mad...
A/N
This story was inspired by the Egypt Central's song – White Rabbit.
When I had noticed that detail the story just simply crawled into my brain and demanded to be written. This story might or might not be confusing (depends on the reader, really) but I had chosen not to explain it in the author's notes because it would trick the word count. I have written all of the explanations (Goblins in the details analysis) in a journal of mine in deviantArt, you can read it at any time, the link is in my profile because it seems that I can't paste the link here without it getting corrupted.
Feedback is very appreciated and responded to!